Small business usually suffers from lack of staff workers. Most often than not, it’s the owner themselves who run the business alone, leading to problems such as maintaining an updated inventory.
Although it’s understandable that the owner devotes their time to more urgent matters, keep an inventory is a crucial part of running a successful business. There are many inventory mistakes small business owners commit, but here are the four most common mistakes that they do, as well as the fix to solve them.
Forgetting to Forecast
Like we’ve said, running your own business can get you entangled in the day to day operation, but forgetting to forecast your inventory is a big no-no.
One of the essential components of running a business is planning and management, which means that you must know the ins and outs of your item sales by days, weeks, months and even years. This way, you’ll have a better estimate when you need to stock up and what item you should stock up.
Doing Things Manually…ALL THE TIME
There are many inventory tools available in the Internet, such as the Square Up’s “Marketplace” App. These apps help owners know when stocks are low, or when there are discrepancies at your supplies. Doing things manually is fine, but completely ditching the benefits of automation is just plain naive.
Being Out of Sync
Particularly for businesses with an online store, sometimes, a customer buys something in that virtual shop, the same time someone bought that same item in the physical one.
The result? The online buyer gets frustrated because when he’s about to claim what he bought online, it’s already out of stock. For heaven’s sake, avoid this type of situation by making sure your inventory system automatically updates your online store when someone purchases an item at your physical store.
Nothing frustrates a customer more than getting excited for something they think they bought, and then finding out it’s already out of stock.
Dysfunctional Relationship With Your Vendors
Maintaining a robust relationship with your vendors is just as important as your relationships with your customers. But we don’t mean it that way so do not remove your trousers yet.
Always make sure that your relationship with your vendors is as smooth as possible by maintaining constant communication with them. If your supplier says that your orders are coming in three days, then expect it in three days and avoid hassling them about it.
Managing your inventory is an easy, but an otherwise tedious task. However, it’s also very important so forgetting to do it altogether just spells doom for your business.
